Chicago Pizza Girl's love of pizza, recipes, and more..

Homemade Pizza Sauce With a Zing!

Being National Pizza week this past week, well, what else was I going to make for dinner but homemade pizza of course! This time, I decided to try making a homemade pizza sauce for the first time. I had actually just gone to the grocery store and bought a ton of tomato products for making chili later this weekend. So since I had the ingredients on hand, I went ahead and used some of them for a nice homemade sauce because I had never tried making my own pizza sauce before.

I started out by sautéing the garlic in olive oil. Next, I added all the tomato products and then added the seasonings. I stirred everything together and let it come to a boil. Then I just reduced the heat and let it sit and simmer for about 20-30 minutes. It was pretty simple, I must say. Who’d a thought? This recipe made probably enough sauce for 2 pizzas. So I have plenty of leftover sauce for my next pizza.

While the sauce cooked on the stovetop, I began prepping the toppings for the pizza. The toppings that went on this one were:

I sauteed the mushrooms and spinach in garlic and olive oil in a frying pan. Once the dough was done in the bread machine and the sauce was finished cooking, I spread the sauce on the dough which was smelling nice and garlicy at this point. I put the rest of the toppings on and finally the cheese and in to the oven it went for 18:25 minutes at 385 degrees.

I have to say I was really impressed with the taste of this one. The sauce had a sweetness to it that I didn’t expect. But the red pepper flakes complimented it nicely and gave it just enough kick. I also liked the buttery taste that the crust had. The bacon and pepperoni went really well with the hint of sweetness I was getting from the homemade sauce because of their salty flavor. I think the garlic really added some great flavor to the sauce as well. I of course love garlic so I went a little on the heavier side when adding it to my sauce. All in all, I was really happy with this one. I was excited my first attempt to make my own homemade pizza sauce was a success!

2 thoughts on “Homemade Pizza Sauce With a Zing!”

Sounds very tasty, Pizza Girl. Again, thanks for posting your adventures! I’m going to try that dough recipe. Do you ever let the dough rest in the fridge overnight or do you use it right away from the bread machine? I’ve found that next dough is less “crumbly” than dough that’s only proofed for a few hours. It’s best after 3 days in the fridge, but I seldom have the patience to let it sit that long. As for sauce, I’ve spent the last year or so in a quest for the perfect sauce. I’ve pretty much nailed down the sauce topping for my stuffed pizza. After trying almost every canned tomato product in the “OMG, look at all these tomatoes!” aisle at Joseph Caputo’s Fresh Market, the Stanislaus brands are the tops. I use hand crushed “Valoroso Robusto Whole Pear Tomatoes”, minced garlic cloves, fresh chopped basil and oregano, ground pepper. That’s it. No salt, no sugar, no cooking them. Done. For thin crust pizza, the Stanislaus brands “7/11 Ground Tomatoes” and “Tomato Magic Ground Tomatoes” are the best. If you want a really smooth pizza sauce, they offer a product that’s more like a puree called “Full-Red Pizza Sauce”. I do ike the small chunks of tomato in the cans of the ground tomatoes better though. For classic thin crust sauce, I use dried flaked Mexican oregano, ground pepper, dash of red pepper flakes, dash of kosher salt, no garlic. And I do simmer it to get the flavors worked in. :)